The older you get, the more deaths it seems, or maybe I was just too young to know the difference. I wanted something to memorialize members of my family and friends.

My cousin found out that in our Scovill line we come from three Mayflower passengers; John Howland, Elizabeth Tilley, and Richard Warren.

The majority of the memorials I made are family and some are very close family friends.

For all those that took my family pictures and used them on Ancestry, you weren't supposed to copy them unless you ask me first, and it would have been nice for anyone of you to say "Hey, I used your picture on my family tree!" I would have replied with something like "Lets see how we are related!"

Discovering who your ancestors are is one thing, but reading about them even if its just an obituary tells you something about them as a person, not just another leaf in the tree. Seeing their final resting place is a type of closure for me.

Please don't add any music to my interments. If you have a picture for one of my memorials you'd like to add, go ahead, but please let me know so I can see it! Thanks!

If I've left flowers on a memorial, that doesnt mean that I know them. It could be that I was flowering random names, or I got there by following links from other memorials. I've flowered over 30,000 memorials, and I probably only knew a very small percentage of those people.

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This was posted in the forums, and I think it pretty much sums up how most of us feel about graving and looking for our ancestors.

Your tombstone stands among the restNeglected and alone.The name and date are chiseled outOn polished, marbled stone.It reaches out to all who careIt is too late to mourn.You did not know that I existyou died and I was born.Yet each of us are cells of youIn flesh, in blood, in bone.Our blood contracts and beats a pulseEntirely not our own.Dear Ancestor, the place you filledOne hundred years agoSpread out among the ones you leftWho would have loved you so.I wonder if you lived and loved,I wonder if you knewThat someday I would find this spot,And come to visit you.

Author Unknown.

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THE RECORDING OF A CEMETERYBy Thelma Greene Reagan

Today we walked where others walkedOn a lonely, windswept hill;Today we talked where other criedFor Loved Ones whose lives are stilled.Today our hearts were touchedBy graves of tiny babies;Snatched from the arms of loving kin,In the heartbreak of the ages.Today we saw where the grandparents layIn the last sleep of their time;Lying under the trees and clouds -Their beds kissed by the sun and wind.Today we wondered about an unmarked spot;Who lies beneath this hollowed ground?Was it a babe, child, young or old?No indication could be found.Today we saw where Mom and Dad lay.We had been here once beforeOn a day we'd all like to forget,But will remember forever more.Today we recorded for kith and kinThe graves of ancestors past;To be preserved for generations hence,A record we hope will last.Cherish it, my friend; preserve it, my friend,For stones sometimes crumble to dustAnd generations of folks yet to comeWill be grateful for your trust.

Hill FamilyI found and transferred the three memorials you requested. If you run upon any Hill family that moved to CA. around the time of the Donner wagon train or really right before that failed passage, I like to know. My Sister-in-law was a Hill from that branch. Marlene

RE: Hi SherryBelieve it or not, all the Murrah's are related. Their used to be a man who was from Texas who traveled state by state recording all Murrah addition's. The last time he came was when my daughter was 2. That was 29 years ago. You can look up his tree online. I will see if I can find the link to it. It is huge.

Hi SherryMy name is Marie Williams Murrah. I know a lot about the Murrah family tree. Marjorie Shumpert Murrah died on July 8. Her funeral is tomorrow. You have left flowers on several of my relatives graves. Thank you. I don't get on here much but had to send in some corrections to this site. Baby girl Murrah stillborn at Ebenezer PHC actually died in 1960. The stone was never corrected. She was my husbands older sister. Her name would have been Constance Ruth Murrah. I can help with the Murrah side if you like. Marie

Lee's Summit Historical Cemetery, Shortridge familyI wonder if I may have your permission to use your grave marker and/or cemetery photos on my family website. Check it out at www.freienmuth-shortridge.com/shortridge/cemeteries.html. This is how I'd be using the photos and obituaries I find on Find A Grave, with 'used with permission' in the caption.